From the New York Times best-selling author of City on Fire, an intimate epic that plunges us deep into the lives of a teenage girl and her father as they navigate love, grief, betrayal, and redemption
“Beautiful and daring.” -Nathan Hill, author of Oprah’s Book Club pick Wellness
“Breathtaking.” -Christina Baker Kline, author of #1 New York Times best seller Orphan Train
New York Times-bestselling author Garth Risk Hallberg discusses his new novel The Second Coming on Monday, June 17th at Off Square Books.
About the Book
When thirteen-year-old Jolie Aspern drops her phone onto the subway tracks in 2011, her estranged dad, Ethan, seems like the furthest thing from her mind. A convicted felon and recovering addict, Ethan has long struggled to see beyond himself. But then a call from New York makes him fear his daughter’s in deeper trouble than anyone realizes. And believing he’s the only one who can save her, he decides to return home.
So begins the journey that will, in time, push Jolie and Ethan-child and adult, apart and together, different yet the same-out past their depths.
Full of yearning and revelation, The Second Coming is at once an incandescent feat of storytelling and an exploration of an enduring mystery: Can the people we love ever really change?
About the Author
Garth Risk Hallberg’s first novel, City on Fire, was a New York Times and international best seller and was selected as one of the best books of 2015 by The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, The Wall Street Journal, NPR, and Vogue. It was the basis for the Apple TV+ series of the same name. He is also the author of the novella A Field Guide to the North American Family. In 2017, Granta named him one of the Best of Young American Novelists. His work has been translated into seventeen languages.
Praise for The Second Coming
“At its core, this is a tale of the love that makes a family and how it does so.”
-Booklist (starred review)
“Reading Garth Risk Hallberg is a constant delightful surprise-you never know what’s coming next: a gorgeous turn of phrase, a perfect pop culture reference, a brilliant new observation, a jaw-dropping plot twist. And all of these gifts are on full display in The Second Coming, a story about a father bound up by his mistakes, a daughter bound up in her silence, and a family in need of saving. It’s a beautiful and daring novel, as inventive as it is breathtaking.” -Nathan Hill, author of Wellness
“A portrait of a daughter in crisis and a father in need of redemption, Garth Risk Hallberg’s The Second Coming is a powerful statement about the clarifying sense of purpose to be found in parental love, and how we demand more of ourselves for the sake of our children. Hallberg’s Ethan is a fascinating study in whether a certain kind of arrested American male, consumed early on by purposelessness and addiction, can in fact have a second act, even if his first is still, somehow, belatedly, being written, and not entirely by him.” -Matthew Thomas, author of We Are Not Ourselves
“Garth Risk Hallberg’s The Second Coming is a sprawling, aching, ultimately hopeful account of a father’s love for a daughter and a daughter’s defiance of that love when all too often it manifests as dysfunction. Hallberg deals with the dilemma of parental inheritance with a light touch, and the grace that finally descends on the Aspern clan is not only transformative but triumphant.” -Joshua Ferris, author of Then We Came to the End
“Garth Risk Hallberg’s great gift is his ability to translate epic themes into intensely intimate, cumulatively powerful novels. Full of tension and emotion and populated by vivid characters and ideas, The Second Coming builds word by word to capture the intricacies of life while revealing its own breathtaking scope. This is a world you can fully enter and explore-one that resembles our own while expanding our understanding of who we are.” -Christina Baker Kline, author of #1 New York Times best seller Orphan Train